The Witness
by XFDryad
Summary: Ten thousand paper cuts.


_ETA: a one hour challenge to myself in the hopes of finishing this before another day passes. So, y'know, with that time limitation it's pretty rough going._

It was the hair, followed by the upright, all business stride. The black skirt suit finished with black heels. The no-nonsense 'don't fuck with me' attitude. Bill hesitated, then called "Dana!"

She turned, blinked slowly. "What are you doing here?"

He squeezed his keys at the tone in her voice. "I'm meeting a friend whose sister was just murdered."

"Oh," she said, ducking her head. "I'm sorry."

"How long are you going to be in town?" he asked, wondering if she was thinking what he was thinking, namely, he knew what Paul was going through and damnit didn't she understand he didn't want her to die too? "Maybe we could have dinner?"

"Bill..."

"Come on, just one meal. Just the two of us."

She glanced up at him then, plainly wishing she were some place else entirely. "Why don't you come up to my room, we can talk there."

He followed her into the nearest elevator going up, watched her press the 15 button. "So...what brings you to San Diego? Mulder snipe hunting again?"

Looking like she'd sucked on a lemon, she said, "You can get out right now if you're going to continue."

Rocking back on his heels a little bit, he made the 'who, me?' face even though he was a little ashamed at his comment. If he really wanted to get her back, as their mother had said during Christmas, he was going to have to lay off of Mulder. "Sorry. Seriously, what are you doing here?"

"Our jobs," she snapped. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. "We're investigating a possible serial killer."

"I haven't heard anything on the news."

"And hopefully you won't. This is my floor."

Bill didn't remember her ever walking so fast, but she marched down the hallway as if wolves were nipping at her heels. She stopped at 1518, fished her key card from the inside of her jacket, pressed it into the light blinked LED green and after a brief hesitation, she entered with Bill close behind. Inside it was all Dana, neat, tidy save for the athletic shoes kicked to one corner, a slight spill of white shirts from a navy nylon bag on the floor. There was a sudden absence of sound and he abruptly understood what was odd. There was a connecting door open to another bedroom and what he had heard was a running shower that had stopped. A wave of warm, soap-scented moisture flooded the room and Bill hoped against hope that Mulder would leave them alone.

Dana sat down at the table and powered up her laptop. "I'm sorry, I don't have a lot of time today."

"Me neither," he said, pulling out the other chair and sitting down. The table was littered with paperwork and manilla file folders, albeit neatly stacked. There was a yellow legal pad filled with black scribbles, at the bottom of which were two hand-drawn outlines of a torso slashed and asterisked. He looked away, glanced at her face, felt how much she wished he was simply gone from her presence.

He hated to admit it, but for weeks after Thanksgiving he had had trouble sleeping. The nightmares of what could have happened he expected, the nightmares of his responsibility for her death staggered him. He suspected it was his subconcious trying to make sense of how he felt. He loved her, he did. There was just, he couldn't, he was used to thinking of her as his annoying little sister, not as a law enforcement officer with the duties and responsibilities the job entailed. And he knew there were consequences.

Or maybe he was just old-fashioned that way, wanting to protect the women and the children from the horrors of the world. Good man that he was, Dad had always impressed the importance of duty upon Bill. But it was different for girls, wasn't it? Their duty lay with family - surely there was nothing wrong with that? Any woman who could do what she had done at Thanksgiving - it wasn't right, it wasn't natural.

Mulder poked his head through the doorway, saw Bill, stepped in fully, naked save for the towel wrapped around his hips. "Scully, have you seen my glasses?"

She nodded towards her bed. "On the side table."

"Thanks," he retrieved his glasses and left again.

He didn't close the door.

Glasses on the side table. Hunh. Bill wasn't going to say anything about it. The look on Mulder's face was enough to keep his mouth shut. This time.

Bill was going to tell her that he and Tara had decided she couldn't see Matthew again if she was working, but what came out of his mouth instead was, "Why do you do it, Dana?"

"Do what?"

He gestured helplessly. "This? You could be a doctor anywhere you wanted. You could work with children, or be a heart surgeon, Dad said that's what you were going to do when you first went to med school. I don't understand what happened to change your mind."

Dana gave another one of those heavy sighs and rubbed the bridge of her nose for a moment. "I really don't want to talk about this, Bill. I've made my choices and I'm happy with - "

"Happy?" he spluttered incredulously before shaking his head "No, no, forget I said that. God, why can't we ever just talk like normal people?"

"Maybe when you stop questioning me and my motives. Or come to realize that I'm not a little girl anymore, someone you can't bully. Now, if that's all you have to say I have to return to work."

He didn't know what to say.

A phone rang, was answered. A few moments later Mulder stepped in again, this time in black socks, dark grey boxer briefs and a pale blue Oxford. He was looping a fantastically bad tie around his neck. "Scully, they just found another one."

"We're done here," Dana said, eyes cold when she glanced at Bill.

He stood, shook his head again. "I don't think we are. Mom says we need to work this out for the sake of the family, and I'm beginning to think she's right."

"Let me give you the short version, Bill. I'm not going to quit the job. I'm not going to become a doctor, at least not at this time."

"I said nothing about any of that!"

"You don't have to, because we have this same conversation virtually every time we meet," she twitched one shoulder. "I'm tired of it, Bill, and if the only way I have to avoid doing this is to avoid you, then that's what I'll do."

"Jesus," he huffed in disbelief. How could she say any of that to him? "How can you say that to me?"

Behind her, Mulder came into the room, shrugging on his suit coat. "Sorry to interrupt, but we have to go."

Dana nodded, directed Bill towards the door with one hand.

Still shaken, he walked out into the hallway, turning around as they followed, Mulder immediately heading to the elevator. "Do you still want to go to dinner?"

She frowned, staring at his chest before reaching for his hand. She squeezed it gently. "Goodbye, Bill. I hope your friend gets the answers he deserves."

And she strode to where Mulder was holding the elevator.

_Note: yeah, that took longer than an hour. As for the meaning of the title, well, I'm not really sure? The original intent was to have Bill see our heroes in action, and then it morphed into this. The title, however, still seemed appropriate. All I can think is that Mulder, rather than Bill, is the witness in question – seeing the brother and sister relationship for the first time._


End file.
